Weekend Mpesa upgrade will cause outage to service [UPDATED]

Safaricom is notifying its users of an impending upgrade of Mpesa going to happen over the weekend, starting Saturday the 21st 8pm to Sunday 22nd 6am. Mpesa services wont be available during the upgrade but Safaricom wants to reassure that customers funds will be safe all through. The upgade aims to enhance M-PESA service and to deliver more innovative service.

Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore said, and I quote:

“We wish to thank our customers for their continued support and understanding and assure them that this upgrade is necessary in order to grow the M-PESA service menu and improve overall customer experience.”

He however did not disclose the details of the upgrade, but my wild guess is that the upgrade will be to make the M-PESA paybill numbers and agent numbers search option be incorporated into the main mpesa menus. This was an item that was discussed during the recent fireside chat with Bob Collymore at the iHub. But we can only wait to be sure.

[UPDATE] I just got some more specifics on the upgrade from Safaricom Director, Corporate Affairs that the upgrade main features will be.